Time's Crucible Lost
by Wanderlustlover
Summary: Jean woke up one morning. To a brand new world.
1. Default Chapter

flameofthedragon@yahoo.com, TangleToy@cs.com, winter_oak@yahoo.com, bloodrosedragon@hotmail.com  
  
(Marvel): Time's Crucible Lost 1/1 (SR-17)  
  
Being sent in Three parts  
  
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement was meant, some characters are Marvel, some will be DC, and some are our own. We make no money for this story, so please no charging. Just a lowly comic store worker myself, and I can vouch for my co-writer. The idea's though are all ours sp.  
  
Archive: Please ask before archiving, so I know where it's going, especially since this is still very much so in the works. We'll discuss and get back to you on it.  
  
Feedback: Yes please, if you like it or don't, then tell us why. We'll welcome any kind of feedback anyone is willing to give, but for flamers I have both a bounds and gags.  
  
Summary: A mix up suspense out of the blue, throws two very lovely, unlikely woman in well worn ruts of their lives together, for a story that will leave almost everyone a bit it surprised by the end. I can't give the entire story away here without ruining it for you as it will be something of a mystery. I hope you enjoy! 


	2. Prologue

Times Crucible Lost  
  
Prologue  
  
"Ughhh...." the faint moan escaped her lips, as she became suddenly, and   
groggily, aware of the stiffness in the all of her joints. They stung like small beams of light wakes of fire like whips, all the way from her neck to her ankles and toes almost. Everything hurt slightly, but it -that pain- meant one thing atleast - she WAS still alive and aware of herself  
  
Light streamed from somewhere close; and it met her eyes in a bright glare that's she tried to shy away from into a hard cotton fabric to what must have been a pillow after she'd opened her eyes. There were sounds beginning to bombard her innocently awoken ears now. Close by she could hear water running -it must have been a wide shower sprayer in a connected room- and even closer she could hear the incessant monotone talking of a TV. Yet, beyond that the only two closer sounds were her soft breath into the crisp, starched dark green pillow and the squeaky, unstable bed beneath her, which seemed to creak louder with her each and every new movement.  
  
"This is Tilby Tish reporting, in the last few minutes before the beginning notes of this beautiful ceremony, from the extended London Post for the Cross-Continental, the wedding of Professor & Geneticist McTaggert of the Diagnostic Genetics World Company & University, to the father in the world renowned singing duet set; "The Myt---  
  
The TV suddenly and unexpectedly clipped off and the sound of another person near her struck her ears; "Blasted news casters; they never report the bleedin' truth anyway. Hey; stop hiding there. I know you're awake, you're being too noisy to be out of it still, woman."  
  
She openned her eyes again, pushing up slightly, from the stiff green pillow and staidly, yet bland multi colored comforter that was in comparison oddly soft. Her eyes roved a second at the surroundings -a filthy, scattered and incredibly small motel room with two beds, a dresser, bed table and a door to a bathroom- before they landed on the person who ordered her around.   
  
A dark haired woman with deep set eyes -the dark light that shined in them reminding her almost of Gambit's, except the coloring was wrong- in a dark colored blue. She was wearing a pair of tight jeans and a loose shirt, with her hair up in a towel only a few strands hanging out, and had a way of standing, which was both authoritative and teenagerly rebellious.  
  
The young woman stared at her, her face hard and set. It was evident she had lived a hard life and was old for her years perhaps like many of them had been always. She moved to a chair to face the girl lying on the bed, her movements deadly but graceful. She sat and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, a gold zippo lighter. Just what I need right now; she thought as she lit the cigarette. Taking a deep drag, she held the unknown woman in place with a piercing gaze. Her voice low and husky from too many cigarettes in her life.   
  
"We can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way. The choice is yours."  
  
She reached a hand up slowly, a bit confused still, running it through her tussled and bed-slept hair as she sat up, she in wonderment of her surroundings and of this woman, and what she was. Her captor? A future friend?  
  
"I- who are-" she had stopped suddenly as her mouth opened to a slight O. She had just tried to reach out with her mind to scan the woman's mind and nothing had happened. In fact she was feeling NOTHING at all anywhere, which meant there must have been an extremely powerful dampening field for the purpose of blocking her mental powers, she thought logically- at first.  
  
"W-where am I and what do you want?" She said remaining her dignity and courage, that she wore life a blanket over her almost. Something rags riches and chains had never been able to take from her.  
  
The woman took a drag from her cigarette, watching the woman. She could tell the confusion was real and the fear, even though she wanted to hide that fact. She also knew this was a woman of scruples, some one she had always tried to be like.  
  
"Who I am is no concern of your for the moment, But I would like to know why you quite literally fell in my lap." Her face seems to harden even more. "And who ya are."  
  
She reached over the table to her leather jacket. Reaching in the pocket she pulled out a 45 and lay it on the table the barrel pointing at the bed draggled woman. There was no mistake that the woman could shoot it before she would have a second to react "and I suggest ya answer me and not give me any trouble."  
  
She glanced at the gun steadily nothing showing in her eyes, an assured expression as her eyes glanced towards the woman, they were a bright emerald green, like sunlight through grass or perhaps small rounded emeralds that held her engaged a second. She didn't seem like a person she should fear at this second, aside for that manner of the gun. For a minor second she though how annoying dampening fields were, because just being able to tell her intentions by her presence was a lot easier sometimes.  
  
"There's no need for that; It's Jean...fair's fair even in these stupid games, what's yours?""  
  
She took another drag, letting the smoke fall from her mouth as she nodded slowly.   
  
"The names Oraya."   
  
Her hand never moved from the gun. Oraya looked over the Jean knowing she was confused, but Oraya was just as confused if not more. She wondered if drinking had finally taken an effect on her, as she grabbed the bottle of whiskey, taking a large gulp. She wanted answers and she wanted them now, but thought maybe she should bide her time...for now.  
  
"I want to know why ya ran me over, but until ya get that figured out," her eyes narrow and harden like pieces of ice " Ya staying with me." The words menacing almost like a threat.  
  
She stood and walked over to the closet, another 45 could be seen in the back of her pants, She took out some saddle motorcycle bags and set them on the bed. Going threw them she pulled out a pair of clean Jeans and a shirt, tossing them to Jean.  
  
"Put those on and get ready we leave in 30 minutes, ya got time to take a shower, and if ya dot know how to ride a motorcycle ya better learn in that time as well"   
  
She moved back to the table, lighting another cigg, and taking a drink of the whiskey.  
  
Jean Grey watched her silently a second before slipping off the bed quietly, aside from the rustle of the blankets. She was a hard set type or atleast she was trying to appear it desperately, turning to it and nothing else. She wrinkled her nose a second at the cigarette smoke as she picked up the clothes. She heavily disliked cigars and cigarettes and the odors they gave off and she thought she'd put up enough with them considering both Gambit and Wolverine. The woman was also a drinker, but how well could she hold her stuff?  
  
  
"Sure..."  
  
...For now.  
  
Better to comply till she figured out exactly where here was and could get in touch with her friends- which she would also need the use of a phone for. She wasn't afraid of this woman -much-, and her only confusion sprung from the lapse between remembering what exactly had happened between when she'd been with Scott and the others in Alaska and suddenly waking up here.  
  
The last thing she remember, she reflected as she undressed and turned on the shower standing in the middle of the bathroom a second, rubbing her arms, was that massive suddenly attack on her mind and something about Betsy had plagued her- but why couldn't she reach it, remember it? What had happened?  
  
The thoughts assailed her as she stepped in the water, smallest shiver against the sudden temperature change before her body began to relax fractionally, and her mind began to wonder.........who was this Oraya? 


	3. Chapter I

Part 1: Untwisting Reality  
  
Chapter 1  
  
She blinked against the stinging air that assailed her bright green eyes. Night were melting into day and day into night. If her count was still right -by sun and attempted count- it was nearing the second (perhaps the third) noontime. She was slightly amazed, even as she dozed off at certain points the woman hadn't stopped yet. Not for food, to sleep, even it seemed for pit stops yet.  
  
The wind blew her red hair ragged around her neck where the helmet and loose shirt didn't cover, but she tight lipped her mouth and let if whip her cheeks and neck tartly in the wind without comment. The vibrations of the motorcycle between her legs, separated only by the woman's borrowed jeans and the black leather seat cushion, hummed a familiar tune. In fact that and her thoughts were the only momentary familiars to the woman; but being out of sorts was a thing Jean Grey-Summers was used to. It was a thing she almost thrilled at, but that was something few would ever know, even of those who thought they knew everything about her.  
  
As far as she could tell they'd gone around the long way around cities to avoid them for some reason, the last being Houston. They'd been taking old roads, and been through one last city Huntsville, a rather small rural city. Yes, Texas; they were in Texas, but headed where exactly? Are she knew was they were headed East to Northeast, to somewhere out there and for some unknown reason.  
  
With Oraya's straight through no stop driving of the motorcycle Jean had to admit to herself she was becoming a bit stiff from no movement, from falling asleep in the position once or twice and that her stomach spoke more of the next. That was, along with the want to use a bathroom that her bladder was screaming for, first.  
  
But there was a second screaming within her, something confused and panicked, buried so far within unless one knew her almost intimately like many of the X-Men or he Professor, you wouldn't realize it was anything at all, and jump to the conclusion it was the situation she was in that had set her off to nerves. Her powers were gone it seemed at the moment, she couldn't seem to use either the telekentics or the telepathy, which meant the woman was carrying around a pretty hefty priced technology somewhere on her own person or the bike.  
  
A mutant power inhibitor field.  
  
*****************************  
  
She reached up wiping away her raging tears, the reflection in the mirror blurred by them. Her cheek and eyes were already turning a dark shadowish, threatening blue and purple. She looked down across the torn clothes and the bruises forming everywhere else, self-loathing and hate filling her veins. She stripped off the clothes as fast as she could, the tears and blood not slowing her down in the slightest. It had always looked like this.  
  
A soft sob escaped her lips, and she looked towards the door, fear filling her bright green eyes, framed by the deep brown-auburn hair with it's one abnormality. He was asleep, deep asleep, due to the booze, but that didn't stop the wake of terror that flamed through her. Flashes of it passed her eyes again, as she tried to bite back the sounds coming from her throat. HIS bottle, and HIS belt, and then the pain. All the burning, stinging pain.  
  
She pulled out her bottle of concealer, powder and cover up. Though unlike other girls she started applying it all over her naked body inside the locked bathroom, on the bruises he'd left on her like they were as normal as a simple blemish. Swearing this time, this time, again, that it would never happen again. The tears still streamed but they were slowing as she picked up a blow drier turning it on low and aiming it at the spots of foundation to dry it perfectly. She pulled on a simple white under wear set slowly, trying not to wince at the pain.  
  
She picked up a white long sleeve shirt, with a small cut neck that wouldn't go down far, and pulled it on, reapplying the cover-up and powder to the bruises on her throat, collar, and breast bone. She pulled on a pair of overalls slowly, swearing she had to go. Her mother had two years ago. She pulled the straps over her shoulders, as the tears began to dry, and snapped them into place.  
  
Never again, she vowed, as the pain in her stomach began to turn completely hollow again. She picked up next a green and black flannel and tied it around her waist. Never again, would he hurt her. Never.  
  
She closed the compact, concealer and cover up tube, dropping them into the front pocket of her overalls. She picked up his brush trying to slight the shudder that racked her frame and brushed her hair out and then added one last object to her ensemble, after the sandals dwarfed by the billowing pants of her overalls. A pair of black gloves. She only had 30 dollars, what was supposed to be her money for the month almost, in her pocket, but where ever it would get her would be better than here she decided.  
  
As she left the bathroom she turned her head down the hallway at the noise. He was snoring. She crept down the hallway easily avoiding the creaky spots of the trailer as she looked in on the sleeping lout. Stoned and drunk off his ass, he would be until her woke tomorrow around 11...but she'd be gone by then. She looked at him, for a moment almost pitying him before the anger kicked in again and then the hate.  
  
She wouldn't regret this. She picked up her only half filled back pack -it only held some clothes, her brush, period supplies, her diary, her only picture of her mother and only a few other things- and crept all the way out of the house and caught the last bus the picked up in front of the dingy parking lot. She paid him a two dollar bill and told him to just keep the change she didn't care. Glancing at the other passengers on the bus she was almost sure they could she all her embarrassment and shame beneath the makeup all over her.  
  
But they could have cared less. Not even one of them looked at her; and in a way that was actually comforting. She slid into a hard blue grey hound like bus chair with what could work legally for a padded back, consoled by the fact she could blend in here and be lost. She clutched her back pack to her on her lap and looked out the window watching it draw away from the town she never wanted to look back at or forward at again and swore it again to herself, a bare whisper this time.  
  
"Nev'r 'gain. Nev'r 'gain."  
  
Never again will anyone hurt me, Mama. A'h swear ta ya. A'h swear it, Mama.  
  
********************************  
  
Jean stirred again slightly, still holding on to Oraya waist as she began to slow down. It was nighttime, had to be near midnight maybe, and they were finally slowing down. She turned off on to a dark road, worse than all the others had been; bumpy, as hell with hole's everywhere. She seemed to be right at home though and almost more determined.  
  
They turned suddenly, straight into the brush, and Jean ducked down slightly against her lest the branches wack her hard against the face, but it wasn't all too obvious. She looked up a second later to see them emerging to a broke down and abandon looking shack. She would have thought it to be so, completely, if it weren't for the black Lamborghini in front of it.  
  
"Don't say a word. Your not here, 'cause if you are -- well lets say I always wanted another live target that wanted to play at hide & seek game in the forest in the dead of night."  
  
Oraya's words touched Jean's ears, but her eyes were elsewhere. He was there, too. A dark, sharply dressed man on the porch who made no move to greet them or even acknowledge them as Oraya parked and got off, taking off her helmet. Jean followed a second later. A little more lost to where she was but it couldn't be seen in her, as they both lay their helmets by the bike and walked towards the house.  
  
She was smart and the more she could learn here, the more she could use to getting herself away from the whole situation and back to the X-Men. He glanced at Oraya blowing a small billow of smoke up in the shadows from where he stood nodding his head toward Jean but looking at Oraya.  
  
"You keepin' with casualties of war, Kitten? You goin' soft now, too?"  
  
Oraya gave the man a crooked grin, making her look sarcastic and charming at one time. She shook her head and glanced over at Jean, her eyes showing pity, for the young woman. She knew she was lost and confused, and Oraya had been there one to many times not to feel anything for her. Her face- hardened once again, as she pulled out her pack of cigarettes and her zippo.  
  
"Don't worry about her, she's my problem" her voice even rougher then she had meant it to be. "So get to it. You know I don't like being dragged from the chase unless it's a damn good, better be a better than chocolate or sex, reason."  
  
The stiffly stanced man on the porch nodded, and glanced over at Jean. "I don't like casualties. Dezzig was the best till he fell in with them. I don't want to loose my second best, my Kitten, that way, too. You knows the rules."  
  
"Course I do;" she almost shuddered at the innuendo in his stance and inflection in his words, hurtling her back to memories best left in the past; so she hurried her words, "She does, too. If not I'll show her the consequences at the end of the little babies you gave me as gifts." She said patting her guns, one at her back and one in her hand now. "Now stop with this damn stalling and get to it"  
  
Oraya motioned for Jean to follow her into the shack. She really did not like having her there, but there was not much she could about it. Nor could she imagine the woman really wanted to be here either, but "so?". Well, darling, that was just life for ya. She could not have Jean going and telling people what it was she saw.  
  
The boards creaked as they walked up the steps, but Oraya and the casually black dressed man never seemed to notice the rotten wood every which way a person looked. Inside the shack was a arsenal of weapons, mostly guns and ammo, a few swords, and many weapons looking to be made from the military, S.H.E.I.L.D and even places beyond that. Some looked futuristic and a few even looked like they might be Shi'ar, Skrull or Kree weapons.  
  
A fold up card table in the middle of the room, papers scattered all over it. Several maps of various cities, states, countries with lines, dots, circles, and large drawings everywhere on them. The man walked over to the table and started shuffling the miscellaneous papers and maps as Oraya turned and faced Jean. "Sit" she motioned to an old chair in the corner of the room. She laid a hand against her chest with her gun with a warning look like "Don't move or else".  
  
Oraya moved to the table and looked down at all the papers, picking them up a few of the smaller white papers and then examining a map; Jean watched form the corner. What had she gotten dragged into? Who were these people? What did they want with her????? Why was he calling her his Kitten? Was that her last name? Was it Oraya Kitten? Or maybe Oraya had been the last name and her first name was Kitten?  
  
She'd heard odder in her time. And, something that plagued her curiosity, why had Oraya defended to him? Ironic for her latest words wasn't it?  
  
Oraya was one by one, looking them all over. The man grabbed one paper finally seeming to have found it, but honestly pulling it out of inside his left coat lapel unnoticed to Oraya and handed it to her.  
  
"They've up the stakes, again. Here's another; number 86. He's due East still, along the coastline, New Orleans or somewhere close. You could easily take him on your way up."  
  
She nodded as she read the paper looking it over and taking in every detail as he pulled out a checkbook and started jotting it and filling it out.  
  
"The normal pay, half now half when its done, and an extra third for expenses in-between. Always use small bills, ya know the drill. And find yourself a new vehicle, incase your being followed."  
  
"Fuck no, over my dead body."  
  
He looked up, more amusement than surprise in his dark features as the light of candles in the rooms played on his face making him look malevolent almost.  
  
"Ah, Kitten, let it go. I'm not asking you to give up the older junker. Get yourself a trailer attached to a large car or van even or something, and cart it along. I want you in new transportation by sun up or I take care of that bike myself."  
  
Her eyes narrowed on him remember the reasons it had ended. It was his way or the highway, it always was. She couldn't stand to be caged in. She was wild! A free agent and being! Hell, if it weren't for the need of money, she'd probably have left the stupid job long ago. He chuckled and reached out and touched the bottom of her chin before she shudder and pulled away.  
  
"Now that's a good girl. Get the thing and we'll be all clear as cheer, my darlin'"  
  
Oraya choked back her first reaction, folding the paper up fast. "I ain't been your doll a long time and I AM the BEST. Get over it."  
  
Oraya looked over at Jean; "We're goin'. Now."  
  
**************************  
  
Almost half a world away, he reached up at a window quietly, pressing his fingertips against it. Something seemed to be calling to him again. Something or someone out there in that vast world. He was used to the small minor tugs that usually were right always; but three days ago he'd been hit with a sudden tug that had almost knocked him cold out, causing him though to faint and awaken later.  
  
It was still there when he'd awoken and still now. Something telling him something was coming. Something telling him he need to go off into the Southwest, after something, someone; but what? Who?  
  
He had a case to try still. The diplomat would arrive this next morning at 9am. She was coming all the way from Africa and her designated lawyer would be arriving a few hours later, after her "Welcome to America" breakfast, for their appointment and meeting. If she planned to go up against the Senate, she better be well worded and ready for the cracker questions.  
  
And him, why was he helping? Well, the children in the village deserved better so did everyone else; because children were the future. They needed to be taught, nurtured, and loved. Not left to starve and die out there.  
  
So here he was three in the morning in the huge house he'd had for years, one of the three he owned, standing there with a cup of tea in one hand looking out over the land around his house. This present house being in DC. It was an empty house besides his cook, butler, and assorted maids; but all in all he was alone. Like always. Sometime in the past he'd envisioned children running up those stairs and playing in those hallways. A lover in the bed next to him; but his work came first. It always had.  
  
**************************  
  
She held the glass near the top with one hand, stirring the coke with a straw distractedly with her other hand. Her temple rested against the glass window staring out, as watching Oraya scatter around her food and appear to have eaten, as she seemed more to be filled and just pecking now. Her eyes lay on the rather large, stubborn suburban in the packing lot. It had been outside the hotel when they'd woken up, just sitting there waiting like a lost puppy. A beautiful, black, shiny, expensive lost puppy.  
  
Not that, Jean herself, had slept any. Her sweet, trusting captor had tied her wrists behind her and then her ankles, leaving her to sleep like that, another piece of rope tying the two together so she could barely move in the slightest. It wasn't that she couldn't understand, sure, she was probably a liability to the woman. Her wrists didn't hurt too much and neither did her ankles, but it was still an annoyance, a strike against dignity.  
  
And the only more annoying thing that was getting the point her powers were still being held from her. She stop twirling the straw without realizing it, her annoyance driving her to tap her finger nails along the glass. Somewhere some where in some small town that she'd missed the name of and didn't seem to have any signs. There were maps at the other end of the restaurant, but her captor wasn't exactly into letting Jean do much of anything alone- except perhaps going to the bathroom in a stall alone, while she also stood in the room.  
  
Oraya stared out at the window, staring at the car. She was not in a good mood, She wanted her bike, but he said a car. Every time she thought about it or looked at the car she began to growl lowly. There was a reason she did not drive cars. There was a reason she only drove that bike.  
  
She glanced over at Jean, the woman was gonna need clothes soon. She figured she would have to pay for them. Another thing to make her grumble like a bear with a thorn in its paw. She did not trust her in the slightest, she had tied her up the other night, that made her feel a little better. It was Jean's own fault for quite literately dropping into her lap. She wondered why she even kept the woman around. She should just kill her and get it over with.  
  
Oraya was shocked at her own train of thought. ' God have I turned that cruel, Have I finally lost all humanity? She shook her head slightly, She did not want to kill this woman, she tried to remind herself killing was for food and only that. And that's all it ever was for.  
  
She looked over at her, and pulled out her pack of cigarettes and lighter, lighting one as she slipped it threw her soft lips. Letting the smoke flow out as she talked.  
  
"We need to get ya some clothes sugar, and a few other things as well. We also need to come to an understanding"  
  
She leaned forward her eyes narrowing, her voice now a growl" If ya want to live sugar, anything ya see ya forget imeaditly. Got it?"  
  
Jean looked up at the growl, keeping herself in check. It was two days and she was definitely in the mood to start biting back even it wasn't her. The woman wasn't going to hurt her, Jean could tell that already, or atleast she hoped she was reading her right right now.  
  
"Turn off the machine and maybe I'll listen."  
  
Oraya raised an eyebrow. "Machine?" She had no Idea what she was talking about. She began to wonder if the woman was crazy or something.  
  
"Do ya take medicine? Are ya out? I can get ya some more. Just tell me what kind ya take"  
  
She did not need a crazy person on her hands right now. She was so close. She could not have anything messing up her plans. Nothing, not this woman, especially now that she this excess baggage.  
  
Jean's hand stopped stirring the straw as she sat up straight, leaning forward slightly on her hands which now almost interlaced on the table.  
  
"You want to play it this way, I will. I've been little perfect captive to you so far, with any hitch, slipped words, or fighting back-" she stopped short trying to keep her red-headed temper in check as she touch on her indignation, and the things she'd now been put through that could calm her slow growing anger and easily there within confusion.  
  
"Turn the inhibitor off."  
  
Kitty's eyes narrowed for a fraction as she watched the woman try and keep of hold of her temper.  
  
"First, ya ain't a captive....not really anyway. You're the one who fell into my lap, I have just been keeping ya alive sugar" Her thick southern drawl seemed to slip from her tongue and surround Jean. "And as for an inhibitor.....I don't know what ya talking about. What in the hell is an inhibitor? And why would I have one?" Kitty truly looked puzzled.  
  
Jean tensed a second, and frowned. She truly disliked games. They were never of any sense that led anywhere, only beguiling one person and enthusing the other. She hated people getting kicks off of other people, it was just sick, twisted and demeaning.  
  
"If you're not holding me, then you'll let me leave? Right now, just get up form this table and walk out the door?" Jean said it lightly, though she already knew what the answer was watching the face of the woman across the table from her.  
  
Oraya shrugged gracefully, though her eyes were narrowed. She took out another cigarette and light it with her zippo lighter. She let the smoke flow from her mouth enjoying the sensation. But she made sure it did not hit Jean in the face.  
  
Oraya could feel the confusion coming from the woman. She felt something deep inside her respond to it. "If ya want to leave sugar...then go. I ain't gonna stop ya none." She took another drag of her cigg. "  
  
"But...ya won't make out there with me. And I think ya know it, but if ya want to go then go. Just remember if ya ever mention me to anyone you'll find yourself dead with in seconds."  
  
Oraya sat back against the bench of the booth and growled once more as she saw the car she had been forced to drive.  
  
Jean sat there a second trying to figure out the opened-ended clause to freedom she'd just been handed thinking there must have been something more, because it was never this easy. It just never happened to go like that. But who was she to look a gift horse in the mouth? She hadn't done anything to her, or anyone around her, even though she was planing to.  
  
It was her place to protect people and she wasn't exactly helpless at the second but she wasn't in ant position to do anything either. She needed to call West Chester and inform the X-men she was okay, and get them out here to stop the woman from going to kill whomever it was she was going to kill. Beside getting away from her meant getting away from the device inhibiting her mutant powers.  
  
"Fine."  
  
Jean scooted out of the booth, letting her brilliant red hair swing behind her and her deliberate movements and walked across the restaurant looking back and forth a second, before slipping out the front door with it's jingling chime. She came face to face with a grimy looking biker and bunch of pay phones. Skirting past the man she dug her hands in her pockets walking to the phone thrifting through some papers and finding a small well of change at the bottom of her pockets.  
  
Thank god, no begging the biker or someone near by for the money to make her call. Just a nice, easy sail into normality back into the arms of her friends and family. Pulling out her change and starting to slide it into the slot she held the cold black plastic phone between her cheek and shoulder, she waited a few seconds and dialed her home phone number.  
  
A shiver ran through her and she moved her shoulders oddly, finally realizing as she relaxed, her worries melting, how chilly it was outside again. The phone rang and rang and for a few seconds she thought with a sigh maybe they were out on a mission, as that was completely understandable. Maybe they were outside playing or-  
  
Suddenly the phone picked up, and a soft French, feminine voice met her ears.  
  
"Xavier's Salem City residence. The Sen-"  
  
Jean interrupted the woman suddenly, jumping the gun. Not too worried at the idea of the someone new or different answering the phone and if it wasn't for her excitement she would have realized the greeting was all wrong, but her mind wasn't in the place her heart filled suddenly.  
  
"Hello, its Jean. Jean Grey. Is any member of the Senior Staff around? Ororo? My husband Scott? The Professor?"  
  
"Madam?" the perky French voice tried to interrupt her as she been babbling, a flush reaching her cheeks as she been too glad, too relieved she was going to be coming home or seeing them soon.  
  
"Yes?" Jean asked hesitating a second her breath forming a small white cloud in the air in front of her for half of a few seconds.  
  
"Madam, Senator Xavier is gone from this establishment as it is his summer estate, but I would be glad to take a message for when he returns if you would so kindly like me to dictate one. Or if it is of dire importance I could have it sent to him within the day."  
  
Jean heart turned to cold, hard lump of lead and took a sickening leap into the bottom of her stomach with lurch suddenness, at the woman's words. What was she talking about? Senator Xavier? Summer Estate? Dictating a message?  
  
* Please deposit five cents please. *  
  
Jean dug in her pockets coming up with 6 pennies and kept digging. There was no more! Her heart was racing as she starting turning Oraya's pockets inside out. PCHANGE! She looked around her green eyes going wide. She heard it. Where was the? A nickel was rolling away, reaching for it, first she missed, and using the only way she could, she slammed a shoe down on it pulling the phone back to her ear.  
  
* Please deposit five cents please. *  
  
"Madam??? Are you there?" the little French voice squeaked as she concentrated on the phone moving her foot so she could float the nickel to her open palm.  
  
"I'm here! I'm --  
  
* Please deposit five cents please. *  
  
She looked in fury at the coin still on the ground strangely, bending down to get it. Her telekinesis? Wasn't she far enough away from the woman yet? Scooping up the coin she slipping it into the phone machine, she felt like her drum was the drum set of a rock group, flooded her body with the noise, while she was flooded in silence.  
  
"Madam???" the voice squeaked again.  
  
"I'm here! The phone machine needed more change. Who are you??? Where are the X-men??"  
  
"My name is Tessa, and I'm one of Senator Xavier's 36 maids, madam...but what is a X--man?"  
  
**************************  
  
Raising a dark skinned arm to wipe her brow and then along her cheek even as it was cool and dry. It was more a normal movement, an annoyed one. She'd been sitting at this table for almost an hour. The morning had been rushed enough as it was, and as heart breaking as ever. She'd said goodbye to her people, the children of that land. Her children, her people, her land.  
  
Her passions that drove her here. The same passions and pride that saw her through trip on the small private jet plane this morning from Africa to this America's New York, even though she had a terrible fear of small spaces since she'd been a young child. It was at odds, as she hated small places but she loved the skies. In her native land her favorite spot was the top of a dust old cliff where the winds battered her, the storms hailed her, and the lightening bellowed her name.  
  
That was where she belonged. Not here, stuck in a stuff office waiting on a lawyer. He wasn't like the Senator who'd seen her through breakfast, and was now looking for him that was obvious. This Senator Xavier had an infectious smile and bright eyes that made her feel drawn to him as if she were a child again and he could pull a cloak around her and make all her rainy days disappear. Like he could bring back the sun, or make her lighter than air so she could fly in those clouds that always called to her.  
  
She had liked him from the moment they'd started talking in the Limo when she arrived, and was now enamored by his welcoming ways due to this "Welcome to America" Breakfast he'd gotten together for her early arrival. What were his children like she wondered? A man such as he must have had children to spoil it on and they must have been spoiled with this mans adoration and been surrounded with this cloak he befriended even her -this stranger from a far off distant land- with. The door opened suddenly and she looked up to meet the eyes of man who'd held -let - her wait here.  
  
"Princess, your lawyer is here."  
  
The man who walked in suddenly made her feel a chill down her spine. He was straight laced, and worse. Tight, crisply pressed, black suite that looked like it had been ironed on him, black shiny shoes, and smooth part to the side of his rich deep colored hair. This was the kind of man most people in her world called "slick". They were the ones you bought a dime a dozen who did they're specific "anything" for a dime.  
  
"Princess Monroe, It's a pleasure," this odd man said extending his hand while she was still regarding his face. A strong jaw, square face and tanned skin. It was all a normal something out of a spy movie, even the sneer that was trying not to curl his lips as he looked at her, till you hit the man very odd glasses. They were red lenses.  
  
"Yes. Mister Summers, was it?" she asked as she shook his hand, and he nodded, sealing their meeting.  
  
**************************  
  
"Come now, Missy. Such a pretty face, can't have found something to look that hung up about," a voice invaded her thoughts as she was hanging up the phone.  
  
What was an X-man? She wanted to scream at the man to leave her alone, but there was something about the inflections in the smooth tone which ate at the edges of the tension in her. She looked up slowly, brushing back a stray lock of red hair to excuse herself and figure out what it was that was going on.  
  
"BOBBY?!?!?!?!"  
  
Jean threw herself into the arms of the man next to herself suddenly, curling her arms around his neck and hugging him tightly. One of her originals, her four. One her boys. Of course someone would have come looking for her, tracked her down in one of their numerous ways, mostly likely due to the Shi'ar technology that the Professor and Kitty Pryde.  
  
"Oh, Bobby, are you a sight for sore eyes," she said pulling back a step, looking at his confused face, "Where are..the others?" her voice edged more of a lost question than his medium cerulean blue eyes, and his dark brown hair, his expressions that were in her heart and easy to read as a book. She knew all of them like they were roses in her own personal garden.  
  
"Others?" the hippie drifter boy, Robert better known as "Bobbi" Drake asked oddly. He wasn't against beautiful woman who threw themselves into his arms to any degree, but he was curious as hell as to how the flame haired women had known his name. He was sure he'd never met her. He remembered most of the pretty faces, unless he'd been drunk or drugged at the time, but that was all behind him now. He'd sworn off it all.  
  
"The X-men! Where are the rest of the X-men?"  
  
"X-men?" He said the funny word that seemed to stick more to the back of his throat than roll off his tongue. A funny word, but what was she talking about. "What's that, bunny? A person? A thing?"  
  
Jean emerald green eyes widened oddly as he seemed more confused the more she said. "Bobby, quit playing around. The X-men. Professor Xavier's dream for a better future? A group of super human people brought together to fight for a better world along side people like The Avengers? The Fantastic Four?"  
  
"Oh, Oh, OH!" The boy that wasn't her Bobby and was somehow grinned suddenly, a sly, half-quirked puppy like grin, that not many men could pull off, like he always could. The little bother type one that just begged for a hug or an affirmative smile and laugh.  
  
"They're bands right? Well, I'm sorry, I don't much keep up with the times being a drifter and listening to the stuff the trucker drivers blare alone the.." He never finished his sentence looking at the woman who's face had lit at the beginning and fell the moment he'd mentioned bands.  
  
She reached up to wipe, what had been tears of joy brought to her lashes. There was no recognition in his eyes. No funny game being played. Only a little schoolboy worries over.over someone gone insane? Jean wasn't crying, she was stronger than that still. She wasn't crazy, she knew what she was talking about. She was lost, along with him now, and swallowing felt like sand paper grating in on it's self.  
  
"Don't you remember any of it? Mutant's being feared and hated? Legacy Virus?" her eyes were darkening with while her heart that had hit her stomach bottom earlier was just becoming this hard lump of coal. "Being Homo-Superior?"  
  
"I'm not rightly sure what a Homo-superior is, Baby," Bobby said moving back a little as his eyes watched a truck leave. He needed to get himself hitched in. He didn't have the money to stay around this no where town for the night. No where towns tended to cost more and he had little as it was. "But I'm just a regular Joe, ya know. Plain human being, Homo-Sapien."  
  
Human?!?! No! What was with him? He was Robert "Bobby" Drake! He was ICEMAN! He. She looked at him silently. His hair was shaggy locks of brown longer than she'd ever seen it and he was wearing an odd assortment of clothing she'd never seen the likes on him. It consisted of a loose tie-dye shirt with a peace sign in the middle, shorts that came a ways past his knees, and then sandals. Over one of his shoulders was a backpack and around his neck was a hemp necklace with the Ying-Yang bead. He looked like a vagabond.  
  
Looking down, her hair framed over her face wildly with the fiery locks, her voice barely the smallest whisper. "I'm loosing my mind."  
  
Bobby was pulling away before she'd even started talking. Very rarely did you watch people ramble and crumble unless they were drunk or high, or seriously heart broken, and the girl didn't seem to be any. She just seemed to be a little loose in de cabesa. How'd she gotten out here? Hell, what a stupid question. A girl with that kinda body could get anywhere no matter the mind.  
  
"Well, I should go talk to the-" The one hand of hers on his forearm the only part of them now touching since she'd thrown herself at him, tightened lightly. It wasn't a violent thing, it was almost a surprisingly silent and gentle plea but she was looking off in a different direction so he couldn't see most her expression through the waves of her hair along the side of her face.  
  
(five seconds ago, too)  
  
Jean had shook her head a little after her own words. That sounded pathetic. She wasn't going to give up that easily. She wouldn't. It all made next to no sense, but she'd make some sense of it. She only needed a little.grounding. Her fingers curled lightly on Bobby's arm almost unthinkingly.  
  
He was still Bobby in the most basic way, and in that she already felt an emotional, maybe even maternal, reaction and the idea of leaving here without him was as impossible as ever. An odd type of smile touched her lips as her eyes landed on Kitty through the glass window of the dinner with a cell phone to her ear.  
  
"Hey, Bobby?" she asked too quietly for him to hear at first, her voice growing as she still stared at the diner window.  
  
"You need a ride?" 


End file.
